That means that you have to have the means to pay for the lawyer.

Or you get an overworked, underfunded public defender, that will strongly suggest to you to take the plea bargain so his work pile gets a little bit smaller.

Well, most of the planet considers it the most natural things to let prisoners vote.

Well, without a trial, how do you know they are guilty?

They admit guilt, because the punishment for the trumped up charges is so out of relation to the crime that happened for real. (Which does not mean that the defendant did the crime, or even a real crime happened, it's just the "visibile" thing) Now we've already concluded that many people take the plea deal to avoid that risk. (Hint: Because of minimum sentencing standards yet another safety valve has been disabled, e.g. the judge sentencing you for a dozen guilty counts to 40 hours social services, because he can see the real scope of the "crime").

So without that coerced admission of guilt how do you know that these guys are guilty? Just because the prosecutor (which risks nothing if he puts an innocent on death row, actually, getting the gulty verdicts even if they are turned over a decade later might be a career boost) says so?

One of the relevant outcomes of the American revolution was the right to a jury trial to avoid these kinds of abuses. The government has managed to void this right by putting an incredible high price (e.g. risk to spend your life in prison for something that might be a misdemeanour worth of a $500 fine. Or not even that.)

One last thing, yes, jury trials are a load for the system. But somebody is creating the load. Notice that many of these "small stuff" in most European countries would have been handled (as being dropped, converted to an "voluntary" reparation) much earlier, e.g. at the police level.

And before you cry, I live in big city, and I can walk the dog in the "worst" part of the city at night, don't carry, and the expected outcome is that I'll just get home, and the dog might be slightly tired. (Not the expected value for some US cities, where I was told by locals, no you cannot carry that expensive looking stuff in the subway). So while our mild justice system can be frustrating from time to time (because you often have the feeling that the perp is getting of easy), it seems to work better than the harsh system (walked the street with a red light, oops, it's 3rd strike, so it's mandatory life in prison).

Don't flaunt, I'm sure we'll get with the "earth is flat" (some words in the bible that can be interpreted this way are there) once certain US school authorities finish rooting out evolution (which is obviously wrong because it's not explained that way in The Book).

Well, and after how many days as unemployed do you get deported. Don't know about H1B in detail, but e.g. the preferential work visas for Aussies mean that you have to leave the country after being 7 days unemployed.

And your comment about "2 weeks and 2 months" is not a very correct observation, California is like most US states a at-will state. That means, if your employer does not like you, http://www.business.ca.gov/Sta... you are gone today. And the legal thing to do at this moment is not look for new work, it's looking for a ticket and moving your home back to a country where you are allowed to stay.

Well, the problem is that most jobs don't require an on-site presence. (Cynically put, a doctor remotely on-demand plus a nurse practitioner can handle most doctor's work. Most trade can be delivered remotely. Administration can done easily enough from everywhere as long as your internet connectivity is good enough, and don't start me on IT.)

Please check your data, Norway is no way protectionist.

Well, if Norway is protectionist, that's really new to me.

Norway, while not politically member of the EU is member of the European Economic Area, meaning that for all practical purposes (beside sending representatives to the European Parliament, Commission, and so on), it's member of the EU.

As such it's clearly in the free trade camp.

OTOH, as Americans might mix it up, yes they have a more communal society, which is a common for Scandinavian countries. But at the same time it's clearly free trade oriented. The fascinating part here is naturally, because they have a high technology industry, some natural resources and so on, so yes they can make the great benefits work, because overall their products remain competitive on the global market.

Hint: Even US companies tend to treat certain employees well (e.g. the ones that produces revenue, are hard to replace, ...).

The problematic employees are the one that are easy to replace, don't produce a great deal of money => these tend to end up outsourced. The big issue here is that there is no solution for these parts of the population, Norway seems to handle this with trying to maximize their human capital (Hint: Scandinavian schools, despite tiring sometimes with their continuous quest for improvement [I have a colleague there with kids], tend to be good, and not good just for a tiny slice of the pupils), and allowing the not so productive part of the population a somewhat dignified life.

Btw, while the free trade argument that every body does what he can do most effectively is usually accepted, free trade DOES have a number of issues that are starting to pop up in literature, e.g. Free Trade does not work for developing countries (probably mostly because of the same reason why it does not work for easy-to-replace workers), and then there are these ecological costs (transport costs are currently artificially kept low, as being taxed lower or completely exempt).

Ok, I want to know when person X (any person using a mobile phone) is reachable, so I can voice call him.

Some fascinating observation, just because you have GSM service, that does not mean you have data service (especially when one is at the edge of network coverage, or e.g. while roaming).

With SMS, you send a nice message with "delivery report" enabled, and the next time that teenager with behaviour problems is reachable, your phone will notice you via the delivery report. Next step, call said teenager (that sadly happens to be related to this parental unit), and discuss your concerns.

Basically, SMS is standarized part of the GSM standard for decades now. With rather exact semantics. Apple tried to implement a short circuit this with their own service, and by doing so broke the semantics of this (in some way nowadays very simplistic looking) service.

So it's absolutely correct that they get sued. The sad reality is that repeated inability to receive and/or send messages can cause significant damage.

(send: "Hi Boss! My kid is in the hospital, will contact you in a couple of hours" => depending upon the boss you might find yourself out of work if you disappear for a couple of hours, and hospitals tend to have poor reception. Same thing the other way: "Hi John! We do have an issue here with VIP customer, please call me ASAP".)

I know, that might sound over the top, but I have lost a contract in a similar scenario (you only need to have a team lead with a bad temper, that has a bad day).

I mean, getting removed from iMessage is not really something that Apple planned.

Even if you deregister from iMessage, it might take 45(!!!) days till your phone number gets removed from all databases.

http://www.businessinsider.com...

Well, you have to sell it under a brand that sounds like "Cisco" ;)

Actually, that depends strongly on the jurisdiction, "tampering with email" is a crime e.g. in Germany.

I guess "deactivate" and "impair" would fit the case?

How does a niche payment system have to do with the flaw?